User talk:Blaze Wolf

This is Blaze Wolf's talk page, where you can send him messages and comments.

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Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16: 5 days

This user's talk page is monitored by talk page watchers. Some of them even talk back. Their input is welcome, and their help with messages that I cannot reply to quickly is appreciated.

It is 12:11 AM where this user lives.

Note: Please check the above template for what time it is in my location before sending a message as I may be asleep.

Note 2: When it is April fool's day, DO NOT TROUT ME as an April Fool's joke. In the past I had a trout button which I removed due to persistent abuse of it. If you trout me on April Fool's Day I will revert you and ask that you do not do it again.

Note 3: Any comments here regarding a vandal or from a blocked user that I was WP:AGF will be archived once I ensure there is nothing left to say per WP:DENY.

Note 4: If I remove your comment and you add it back, I will revert you and warn you for doing so. If you do it again after that then I will report you for harassment. This crap has gone on for way too long and I've become less and less tolerant of it. Removing comments from my own talk page is perfectly allowable per WP:OWNTALK.

Semi-retirement

This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived.

It's about time I officially declared myself semi-retired. I don't edit nearly as much as I used to anymore, mostly because I don't have the time to do so, but also because I'm simply not nearly as interested in editing Wikipedia anymore. Don't worry, I'm not leaving forever (yet, we'll see what happens). In addition I'm starting college in a few weeks so my time will be even more limited because of my job. I will retire from being a mentee (tho anyone I'm currently helping can still ask me for help) but will continue with the Counter-Vandalism Unit Academy. I enjoyed my time here and meeting all these people. Will I ever return to editing Wikipedia full time? Who knows. Maybe when I'm an old man if Wikipedia is still around. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{blaze__wolf} 03:30, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's sad to see your activity drop, but I wish you a good time in college. Rusty 🐈 03:34, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Adding on to this, I'll respond to your talk page messages while you're inactive if that's okay with you. Rusty 🐈 03:35, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rusty Cat: I'm retiring from mentoring so I won't really receive nearly as many, but that's fine if you respond to others on my talk page. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{blaze__wolf} 03:36, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good luck in college and wherever/whatever you go and do! DMacks (talk) 04:37, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tech News: 2025-10

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

All logged-in editors using the mobile view can now edit a full page. The "Edit full page" link is accessible from the "More" menu in the toolbar. This was previously only available to editors using the Advanced mobile contributions setting. [1]
Interface administrators can now help to remove the deprecated Cite CSS code matching "mw-ref" from their local MediaWiki:Common.css. The list of wikis in need of cleanup, and the code to remove, can be found with this global search and in this example, and you can learn more about how to help on the CSS migration project page. The Cite footnote markers ("[1]") are now rendered by Parsoid, and the deprecated CSS is no longer needed. The CSS for backlinks ("mw:referencedBy") should remain in place for now. This cleanup is expected to cause no visible changes for readers. Please help to remove this code before March 20, after which the development team will do it for you.
When editors embed a file (e.g. [[File:MediaWiki.png]]) on a page that is protected with cascading protection, the software will no longer restrict edits to the file description page, only to new file uploads.[2] In contrast, transcluding a file description page (e.g. {{:File:MediaWiki.png}}) will now restrict edits to the page.[3]
When editors revert a file to an earlier version it will now require the same permissions as ordinarily uploading a new version of the file. The software now checks for 'reupload' or 'reupload-own' rights,[4] and respects cascading protection.[5]
When administrators are listing pages for deletion with the Nuke tool, they can now also list associated talk pages and redirects for deletion, alongside pages created by the target, rather than needing to manually delete these pages afterwards. [6]
The previously noted update to Single User Login, which will accommodate browser restrictions on cross-domain cookies by moving login and account creation to a central domain, will now roll out to all users during March and April. The team plans to enable it for all new account creation on Group0 wikis this week. See the SUL3 project page for more details and an updated timeline.
Since last week there has been a bug that shows some interface icons as black squares until the page has fully loaded. It will be fixed this week. [7]
One new wiki has been created: a Wikipedia in Sylheti (w:syl:) [8]
View all 23 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week. For example, a bug was fixed with loading images in very old versions of the Firefox browser on mobile. [9]

Updates for technical contributors

Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 02:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Growth Newsletter #33

A quarterly update from the Growth team on our work to improve the new editor experience.

Constructive Activation Experiments

This year, the Growth team is exploring ways to help more new account holders start editing—and do so constructively, meaning their edits are not reverted. Our latest experiments include:

Gradual rollout of "Add a Link" at English Wikipedia – We are gradually introducing the "Add a Link" structured task to newcomers at English Wikipedia (T386029). This serves as a natural A/B test to measure its impact on activation, retention, and revert rates (T382603). Previous experiments on pilot wikis showed that "Add a Link" increases newcomer participation, particularly by helping them make constructive (non-reverted) edits.
Testing in-article suggestions for first-time editors – Many new account holders want to contribute but don’t know where to start. To help, we’re piloting a feature that surfaces structured task suggestions directly in an article’s read view for brand-new editors (T385343). These suggestions will appear for logged-in users with no edits, providing a clear, simple way to begin contributing that is surfaced while they read.

Community Updates

Newcomers often struggle to find their place in Wikipedia’s collaborative environment. While experienced editors easily discover events like edit-a-thons and writing campaigns, newcomers often miss out.

To bridge this gap, we launched the Community Updates module for the Newcomer Homepage. This module is disabled by default, allowing Community Admins to decide how (or if) to use it.
If your community hosts events, consider setting up a Community Update to engage and welcome newcomers! Learn more on Diff. To configure, visit Special:CommunityConfiguration.

Community Configuration

Community Configuration is now available across all wikis, including non-Wikipedia projects (T383910). Community Configuration allows admins to customize various features like Growth features and Automoderator for their communities, and more recently the Babel extension now allows admins to modify configuration:

Babel customization – Admins can now configure Babel settings (T374348), including category naming, automatic category creation, and more. See an example on Wikimedia Commons.
Upcoming configurable features – Projects exploring community configuration options include: Incident Reporting System (T374113) and Cite backlinks (T378807).

Mentorship

Mentors play a key role in guiding new editors. If you’re interested in mentoring, or turning mentorship on at your wiki, check out the Mentorship FAQ

Starting February 17, 100% of new accounts at English Wikipedia will be assigned a mentor (T384505).
At Spanish Wikipedia, on 50% of newcomers get a mentor. Experienced contributors are encouraged to join mentorship so that Spanish Wikipedia can provide a mentor to all new users.

Looking Ahead

In the coming months, we will continue balancing maintenance work—such as deprecating EditGrowth Config (T367574) and migrating Statslib (T359352) — with user-facing improvements that support new editors and foster the next generation of contributors.

Growth team's newsletter prepared by the Growth team and posted by bot • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

18:59, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Tech News: 2025-11

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.

Updates for editors

Editors who use password managers at multiple wikis may notice changes in the future. The way that our wikis provide information to password managers about reusing passwords across domains has recently been updated, so some password managers might now offer you login credentials that you saved for a different Wikimedia site. Some password managers already did this, and are now doing it for more Wikimedia domains. This is part of the SUL3 project which aims to improve how our unified login works, and to keep it compatible with ongoing changes to the web-browsers we use. [10][11]
The Wikipedia Apps Team is inviting interested users to help improve Wikipedia’s offline and limited internet use. After discussions in Afrika Baraza and the last ESEAP call, key challenges like search, editing, and offline access are being explored, with upcoming focus groups to dive deeper into these topics. All languages are welcome, and interpretation will be available. Want to share your thoughts? Join the discussion or email aramadan@wikimedia.org!
All wikis will be read-only for a few minutes on March 19. This is planned at 14:00 UTC. More information will be published in Tech News and will also be posted on individual wikis in the coming weeks.
View all 27 community-submitted tasks that were resolved last week.

Updates for technical contributors

Detailed code updates later this week: MediaWiki

In depth

The latest quarterly Growth newsletter is available. It includes: the launch of the Community Updates module, the most recent changes in Community Configuration, and the upcoming test of in-article suggestions for first-time editors.
An old API that was previously used in the Android Wikipedia app is being removed at the end of March. There are no current software uses, but users of the app with a version that is older than 6 months by the time of removal (2025-03-31), will no longer have access to the Suggested Edits feature, until they update their app. You can read more details about this change.

Tech news prepared by Tech News writers and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.

MediaWiki message delivery 23:06, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]